27. Chase
Chase
“ I got a text,” Madden says, staring down at his phone, his chest heaving.
“Fuck, from who?” I ask, wiping my sweat away with the back of my hand and stepping away from the punching bag.
There’re plenty of people who could be texting Madden that I don’t give two shits about right now. Screw work and our responsibilities. The only thing that matters to me right now is figuring out what we can do for Luna, especially since we’re still being kept away from her.
Archer got a call from his Father saying he’d allow one of those supervised visits, but we’d have to wait until Luna got settled in at the center.
So we’re just sitting here, waiting.
“From my brother. He has an address. For Luna’s parents.”
I guess we’re not waiting anymore.
We immediately head upstairs to Archer’s office and tell him the news. He calls Kane back from work right away.
Kane screeches into our driveway a few minutes later. He definitely broke basically every traffic law there is to get back here so soon.
“Get in.”
We do, tossing in the duffel bags full of stuff we need to get ready for something like this. We don’t know what we’re walking into, especially considering these people are basically human traffickers. We need to be prepared.
We also don’t want to waste time getting ready in the house when we could do that on the road.
“Did your brother send any other details other than an address?” Kane asks Madden, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“No,” Madden says, shaking his head. “He said he didn’t want to get involved, in case they were a part of a bigger organization. Only other message he sent was about where to drop off the rest of the money.”
“Didn’t your sister say something about her parents not really being her parents?” Archer asks me, turning backward in his seat.
“Holy shit, yeah she did! She said something about how two betas can’t have an omega child. What do you guys think happened? Think her mom cheated?”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” Madden grunts from beside me.
The drive over is tense as fuck, and I don’t just think that’s me projecting my shit. I don’t hate Southsiders and I definitely don’t think they’re any less human than anyone else, but I hate this place.
There’s just something about it that reminds me of how shitty I was as a kid. How much fucking trouble I got everyone around me into because I was stupid.
I clench my hands into fists on my lap. I’m not that stupid kid anymore, though. I’m not the one who needs to be saved.
Madden taps me, handing over my gear. I wordlessly start putting it on.
I think all of us are sitting on the edge of our seats right now. Luna’s last words to us, sharing the details about the shit she had to go through, still eat away at me.
A part of me I didn’t even know existed broke inside me, knowing the details of what happened to her. I suspected, I’m sure we all did. Someone doesn’t just end up in the state, physically and emotionally, that she was in when we found her, without going through something horrible.
But still. Having your body and heats sold by your parents? Actually being permanently sold to an alpha? That shit’s crazy. The hormone stuff I don’t really understand aside, it’s a wonder Luna’s even remotely sane after everything she’s been through.
The house we pull up to isn’t anything special. It’s a tiny place with peeling paint and wood that looks like it creaks in the wind.
“This is the address we were given,” Kane says, pulling up across the residential street and turning off the car.
I see one of the neighbors peeking through their curtains at us. Our car does stand out here, so the attention is understandable.
“We should hurry,” I say. “We’re being noticed.”
“Here, Kane,” Madden says, passing Kane’s gear to him over the center console.
“Great, let’s go,” Archer commands.
He’s the one who leads the four of us, banging on the door so hard I’m surprised the old wood doesn’t splinter apart.
It swings open a second later, revealing an annoyed-looking, pot-bellied, balding, middle-aged man. A beta man.
“What the fuck are you banging on my fucking door for, huh?”
I’m fairly certain that I could tell that Luna isn’t related to this guy, regardless of whether or not I could smell that he was a beta. There’s no way someone as drop-dead gorgeous as Luna could’ve had any relation to the man standing in front of me.
He stands there, nervously shuffling his weight slowly between both feet as we just stare silently at him. That’s probably the fastest he can move, anyway.
I don’t blame him for being nervous. Must be pretty crazy for a whole pack of four alphas to just suddenly show up at his doorstep, glaring daggers at him. None of us are keeping our dominance in check either, so just standing in front of us must be a lot for him.
As dead set as we are to help Luna, we’re obviously not going to storm into a random person’s house, especially when the intel we’ve gotten was from Madden’s brother. He’s definitely motivated by money, but we haven’t worked with him before. We don’t know how good his intel is.
Archer reaches slowly into his back pocket, unfolding a printed-out picture of Luna.
The man’s eyes go wide and he goes pale.
Bingo.
He recognizes her. That’s all we needed.
Madden steps forward and grips the man by his neck, pushing him back inside until he’s pinned up against the wall. We all make our way inside, relatively leisurely, considering the circumstances.
Some may call us cocky for not being more careful, but there’s very little in this tiny house that we can’t defend ourselves against. We’re one of the most dominant packs in the Northside and we’re armed to the fucking teeth.
The man starts screaming, flailing his short arms and legs around.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He grunts out, his face going red.
I guess Madden isn’t holding him all that tight, considering we can still hear him just fine.
“What in the world is going on?” A woman says from the kitchen, her voice shrill.
She’s thin and her eyes are sunken in. There’s a sort of look in her eye and twitch in her movements that my gaze instantly fixates on.
I know that all too well, especially from the people I hung around when I was younger.
This woman is a drug addict. And it looks like she hasn’t had her fix in a while.
“I’d recommend you not move Mrs. Collins,” Kane says, his voice commanding as he withdraws his handgun, flashing it so both of Luna’s parents can see it.
It makes Luna’s mom freeze in her tracks, her eyes going wide.
“Anyways, let’s continue,” Archer says, pulling out the picture of Luna again. “Do you know who this is?”
Remember when I said we walked into the house a little too leisurely, considering the situation? Well, I was right. We were a bit too relaxed. Or maybe it was just me.
Luna’s mom lets out this banshee-like scream and before I know it, I see the flash of a kitchen knife she grabbed from the knife block aimed right for my face.
If it weren’t for the hours and hours of training in all sorts of hand-to-hand combat I’ve done with the pack, I would’ve probably been turned into a shish kabob.
It does mean I’m not exactly gentle when I knock the knife away from her hand and slam her, face down into the counter, her arms twisted behind her back.
She just screams, fighting me with a surprising amount of strength. “That little bitch is the reason I can’t have my drugs anymore!”
Well, I guess it’s not a surprising amount of strength considering she’s a drug addict. A drug addict craving her fix, to be specific.
“Get the fuck off of her!” Luna’s dad roars, kicking at Madden. From the way Madden doesn’t even flinch, it doesn’t seem that his kicks are very effective.
“What did you expect me to do, let her stab me?” I call over my shoulder. I lean down so I can meet Mrs. Collin’s wild eyes. “By the way, what’re you talking about? Seems like a pretty shitty way to talk about your own daughter.”
“She’s no fucking daughter of mine,” she practically spits. “We were told to take her in. At least she was worth something when we realized she was an omega.”
My sister was right .
My sister is very rarely ever wrong, but still. Hearing it from the horse’s mouth is interesting. I don’t even know if Luna knows any of this.
“Shut up, you stupid cunt!” Luna’s father growls.
“Fuck you, Roger! If it weren’t for your stupid fucking gambling we would never be in this fucking mess!”
“My gambling? Look at you! You turn into a monster when you don’t have your pills!”
“And whose fault is that!?”
I think all of us are a bit taken aback by the intense couple’s spat in front of us. Luna’s parents are a load of work. Well, I guess they’re not technically her parents.
“Both of you shut up!” Archer barks. His dominance affects me too, even though I’m an alpha.
Alpha barks are most effective on an omega. To be completely honest, I’ve never used my bark on an omega before. I’ve never had a need to use it. Any of the omegas I’ve spent time with in the past were all enthusiastic about what I wanted to do together with them. No hormonal persuasion necessary.
The fact that Archer’s bark is strong enough to have influence over betas is impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done before. It’s pretty frowned upon in the Northside.
Archer turns his gaze to Luna’s dad, or Roger—such a weirdly fitting name. “I don’t think you understand the situation here. You will tell us all the information we’re looking for.”